When my niece stopped a plane!

Bangalore, the beautiful garden city was engulfed in a thick blanket of fog at 4 o’ clock in the morning that day. Getting up that early was not my usual routine, but it was meant to be a very special day. I was to drop my dear cousin and her little one to the airport. My cousin had a trans-Atlantic flight to catch from Bangalore all the way to Chicago with one stop in-between. It was going to be an affair with the skies for more than 20 hours! She was quite tensed thinking of the long journey with my niece who was just a few months old. The very first flight for the baby!

We reached the airport before time so that she could comfortably finish check-in related procedures. These were the days when online check-in was yet to become the norm. My uncle and aunt, her parents, were with us as well to see her off. Uncle informed her that we’ll wait outside the airport till the time the flight departs. It was probably one of the finest decisions uncle took which I’m sure made him happy later.

The sequence of incidents that unfolded later was to be termed nothing less than a real-life-drama. My sister along with the baby completed the check-in procedures pretty well. Being a mom for the first time and travelling with a few days old baby is never an easy combination. She somehow managed to complete the process and moved to the boarding gate. Soon enough she found herself seated next to an American guy who was destined to have a flight of his lifetime!

Shortly before the take-off, my niece decided that she had enough of being a nice kid and started acting cranky. My cousin used every possible arsenal she had to pacify the little one. This was the first of a million times she was to realize that there were certain moments when no tricks what-so-ever worked with an angry baby. What she wouldn’t have known then is that she was to become an expert in all such cases soon with God blessing her with four more such angels in future!

The baby continued to act difficult and started crying incessantly. My cousin could see the American gentleman starting to get a bit uneasy in the next seat. Somehow he seemed to have got a vision of what’s going to happen next and was mentally preparing for the worst. The cabin crew started to take notice of the situation as well. While the drama was on, the captain of the flight announced the immediate departure of the flight. The tyres started to roll.

My niece promptly elevated the tension of the scene by shifting her crying to top gear. Soon she was competing with the vibration of the flight taxiing to the runway with her earth shattering scream. She realized that something needed to be done immediately lest the flight will take off. The moment of truth arrived! She took her full strength and with a loud cry splashed an entire load of vomit right on to the lovely wrinkle free shirt of the American. This was the very moment when flight touched the runway!

The whole scene on-board turned quite chaotic. Everyone around my cousin’s seat started getting panicky. The cabin crew decided to intervene. Without wasting a moment they informed the dire situation to the captain. This was moments before the flight was given clearance to take off by Air Traffic Control.

Not knowing any of these dramatic events, we remained at the airport parking lot awaiting the sight of the departing flight. Shortly after my niece finished executing her final scene of the play, my uncle got a call on his mobile. I could see his face muscles getting tightened as my sister gave him a quick summary of what happened. In a few minutes, we greeted her along with my niece at the Arrivals area of the airport.

My sister narrated the unbelievable story again to all of us. I looked at my niece and there she was, peacefully lying in the arms of my aunt. She even had a smile, the one that is seen only on the face of those who created history!

The Purse Holder

I received an interesting message on one of the WhatsApp groups the other day. The message said money has different names based on the context. For example, money is called offering at church, fees in school, tax for government etc. It ended with the question, “When a man gives money to his wife what do we call it?” I gave it a thought and before sending a response I showed the message to my seven year old son. Promptly came his answer. His said ‘sharing’. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better answer!

When it comes to a family united through marriage, one of the key factors that will form the basis of everyday living is the cash flow. The obvious question that gets raised many a times is, who is the purse holder? I do not plan to prescribe a recommended way of money management here. All what I intend to do is share a point of view. As the case is with a few other sensitive areas in marriage, this is a decision which couples need to take with a lot of prudence.

The concept of bread-winner associated with men of the family has become a matter of history in many of the families we see around. Women in the past were either not allowed to learn or earn. This obviously led to the man of the family being the sole earning member. Some men associated the earning potential to a sign of power and demanded that they have the final say on the family spend. There were others who literally outsourced the management of finance to their wives and only considered them as mere bread-winners and were least interested in managing the distribution of resources.

Both the approaches mentioned above had its own flaws. The former was quite chauvinistic whereas the latter befriended lethargy. A middle-line seems more acceptable especially in today’s families where earning member is still one person. This is all the more important since the member who remained non-earning is due to their choice than by design.

Most of the families today where women choose to take a break from work due to parental responsibilities do that out of a choice they made for the family. This doesn’t make them any less important than the earning men of these families. In fact their decision needs to be respected even more since if they had decided otherwise the men in these families would’ve never been able to celebrate Father’s Day!

The important fact that needs to be remembered and understood by a couple is that money earned by one or both, is the money earned by the family as one unit. The amount does not belong to the person, instead it belongs to the institution called family. The family members have equal rights on the amount. It is only incidental that one chose to work and the other chose to be a home maker. One is not a premium service than the other. Both these vocations have their own sets of challenges and we’ve heard enough and more stories of how men are known for belittling the volume of work done by the home makers. A true man will always see him at par with his wife and never at different levels of value chain in the family.

There are different ways to ensure that the non-earning member of the family is equally empowered when it comes to the matter of money. Getting supplementary bank cards, maintaining a home purse and ensuring a constant supply of cash, sharing the banking and cash management channels with each other and ensuring transparency in every bit of cash spent are a few tips that can work well to maintain a balance between the parties.

The approach could be slightly different in families receiving two sources of income. A few families I know have decided to use one of the sources for daily expense and the other one is saved totally for investments. There could be many such different ways of money management.

We all need to sit and think which approach suits us the best and implement the method as long as we learn to appreciate the fact that the purse is held by both the parties and together we are responsible for what goes out from it. May you be blessed with the judiciousness for spending well for your families!